Book Bingo April 2020

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Four books to add to the bingo.

Book Mentioned in Another Book: Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather, which was mentioned in last month's romance Red, White & Royal Blue. I listened to it on audiobook and it's a solid story of a European Catholic missionary priest coming to establish a diocese in the New Mexico territory during the 19th century.

Set in Your Country: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, which is set in Vermont. I listened to this on audiobook. It was the same female voice that did Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and she does mentally ill first-person white woman voice so well that I am not going to listen to any more of hers because it's not healthy for me to listen to so much 'magical thinking' and not helpful mental coping mechanisms from my own past. The story is about the last surviving members of the Blackwood family who live in isolation from the town because of a mass poisoning that took place in the house six years earlier. Then a cousin comes to visit and stirs things up.

Award-winning Book: Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie has won HUGO and Nebula awards. I enjoyed it. It's about a kind of alien who is on revenge quest to murder someone who killed someone they were close to. But there is, of course, a tremendous amount of world building. I might want to read more in the series. I have to remind myself (as someone who reads mostly mysteries) to hang on and things will start to make sense further in.

POC Author: The Frangipani Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu. Takes place in Singapore in the 1930s. A young Chinese girl teams up with the British head of police to solve a crime in the governor's house. Very enjoyable. A good female protagonist. My only complaint is that I figured out the mystery and the clues a long time in advance, but I would still read more in the series.



I read Ursula K. LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness and John LeCarre's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, both on e-book.

And I've been listening to a ton of audiobooks. The seven Maigret books [the first six, skipping #7 because I'd already read it, and #8] by George Simenon and four Sloane & Crosby stories by Catherine Aird [Slight Mourning, Some Die Eloquent, His Burial, Too, and Last Respects] and H. R. F. Keating's Inspector Ghote's The Perfect Murder.

Previously (for the bingo):


The First Book in a Series: A Death in Vienna by Frank Tallis [ebook]
Diverse Reads: The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey
More than 300 pages: The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides [audiobook]
Humour: Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh
Non-fiction: The Interior Castle by Saint Teresa of Avila
Movie/TV tie-in: War Horse by Michael Morpurgo [audiobook]
An Animal on the Cover: Devotions by Mary Oliver
Mystery/Crime: This Poison Will Remain by Fred Vargas
Title has a Name in It: Lord Darcy Investigates by Randall Garrett (e-book)
Children/YA: Clay the Cromer Crab and the Invasion of the Jeellyfish by Salena Dawson
Colour in the Title: Colour Scheme by Ngaio Marsh [ebook]
Romance: Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
An Author You've Never Read Before: The Raven Tower by Anne Leckie [audiobook]
100 pages or less: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Comments

[lunabee34]

I love Shirley Jackson so much. We Have Always is one of my favorites. I got to write fic for it for last Yuletide, so that was fun.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I enjoyed your fic. I think you captured the voice perfectly. I like Shirley Jackson, too, but I have to take it in small doses.

[lunabee34]

Thank you! It was fun to write.

I'm trying to work my way through all of her stuff (I've also read The Sundial which I really liked), but I'll be skipping her first novel because it's about the murder of a child, and I just can't read that subject matter.

[smallhobbit]

Your Book Bingo is looking really good. I'm delighted you liked The Frangipani Tree Mystery - I enjoyed the local colour.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Thank you very much! Yes, I think when the bingo is done (if we are still in this quarantine) I will come back and try the next in the Frangipani series. I liked it that much.

[kingstoken]

Looking awesome, you are getting so close to some more bingos!

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Thank you very much! Yes, I am hoping to be all done by the end of June.